1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a table game system equipped with playing cards and a card shooter apparatus, and more particularly, to a playing card reading technique suitable for use in table games.
2. Description of the Related Art
In baccarat and other table games, since rules which determine the outcome of the games are complicated, a dealer who deals playing cards on a game table might make an error in deciding the outcome of a game. Besides, players taking part in a table game might switch dealt cards.
To deal with this situation, a technique has been proposed that uses playing cards bearing a code, which having been printed on the front side of the cards (side on which a suit and rank are printed), is invisible to the human eye under conditions of normal use, but identifiable by a predetermined identification device as well as uses a card shooter apparatus which has a capability to read the code out of the playing cards by being provided on a game table (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-296634).
With the playing cards and card shooter apparatus described above, since the card shooter apparatus can determine the outcome of games if rules for that are stored therein, any error made by dealers in deciding the outcome can be detected.
Also, since dealt cards can be read and checked by the card shooter apparatus, it is possible to prevent cheating such as card substitution by players or the like.
However, in card games using playing cards, due to the nature of the card games, cards are shot out quickly by the hand of a dealer at times, and slowly by a card shooter apparatus at other times. Consequently, readers which read playing cards in a state of rest (e.g., barcode readers) are unsuitable for reading a code from cards in a state of motion (unsuitable for use in table games). Also, code readers which read a code from cards on the assumption that playing cards move at a certain speed by being shot out from a machine are not suitable for reading a code from cards shot out at various speeds (e.g., because of possible read errors).